01. 11. 2010.

PORTRAIT 3 - Emir Kapetanović

Emir Kapetanovic is a young stage director who presented his second performance “Plasticine”, within the international young theatre-makers exchange program at the 2010 Mess Festival .

Emir was born in 1988 in Sarajevo. He spent his childhood there. His mother is a paediatrician and his father a construction engineer. He still lives in Sarajevo.

As a child, he did not like theatre much. He says he is not satisfied by the level of education in Bosnia, especially in terms of theatre. “Attending theatre performances was a part of the school program, but with mostly boring shows”. Most of the writers he discovered at this period were old ones, who worked from the 1930s to 1950s, which was, according to him, a bad way to connect young teenagers with theatre and for them to get involved with stage direction.

However, Emir was a great filmgoer. And that is what led him to the world of art making. He enrolled at the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo so as to become a film-maker. But he discovered there that what interested him beyond anything was stronger in theatre work: the connections between people and relationships. “I like saying that I can hate someone and work with him on film or TV, but in no way I can hate someone I work with in theatre. If I like him as a person, I can work with him. That’s the only way to do something good. Then you have a connection based on honesty.”

The actor is central in his work. When he entered the Academy, he was totally focused on set design and light design. He realized later that working with actors was substantial. Now, even in performances when he focuses on formal aspects, for instance, when including video into the performance, his shows are mostly based on work with actors. As far as acting is concerned, he likes referring to the Romanian or Czech theatre in his directing attempts.

His show “Plasticine” talks about the mental and physical violence inflicted on a teenager. Violence is indeed a central question to him. His influences speak for themselves: filmmakers Takeshi Kitano and Martin Scorsese, and photographer and filmmaker Larry Clark are his main role models. J.D. Salinger is also very important to him: Emir will stage “The Catcher in the Rye” as his graduating performance in a few months.

Talking about violence is not easy in theatre. In his performance “Plasticine”, Emir chose to show rape and physical violence on stage. “We did not decide that at the beginning. We wanted to run away from that kind of action. I saw many performances mainly focused on violence, but there was no soul in them, it was like an attempt at impressing the audience. We just started making this performance together, working with psychologists, watching movies. We got stuck with the mood of the show, which influenced us to do something.” Violence is his chosen subject because violence is a part of our society; theatre must help us to think about it and to show people that they are not as good as they think.

Fortified by his knowledge of cinema, Emir thinks that theatre has to get to the same level of diffusion as films have. For this to happen, theatre must appeal to a younger audience. “You see mostly old ladies there, and old men sitting in their suits. They are used to never taking their suits off!” The difficulty with theatre is that the effort the audience has to make in order to go and watch a performance is really more important than the one they take to watch a movie on a DVD player at home. “We must give them this energy – since they give us theirs by coming to our show.” For Emir, it’s worth it, since theatre is more honest and more alive than cinema.

Emir will graduate from the Academy of Performing Arts in a very few months. He plans to stage Salinger for his graduating performance. And maybe to go abroad for one or two years to get his master’s degree and discovers other ways of doing theatre: “You have to go somewhere to see how people are doing things and to come back with new knowledge. And you can see that you are not as good as you thought you are, and not as good as they are telling you that you are. That is the best thing for you as a director, as an author, to have levels that you have to reach…”

Marjorie Glas